WHAT THEY DID NOT WANT YOU TO SEE ON TELEVISION.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
GAZA STRIP - CAPTURED BY TERRORISTS
Why Gaza Matters to U.S., the World
Newsweek
June 25, 2007 issue - The Israelis didn't want Palestinian elections back in January 2006. Even Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, had been worried about them and kept asking for delays. As early as the spring of 2005, Abbas had warned American officials that he did not have the popular support to disarm Hamas, the Islamist party that turned suicide terror bombings into a standard tactic in Israel and which both Abbas and the Israelis saw was growing in power. But Bush administration officials insisted, confident of the curative powers of democracy. Later, after Hamas stunned the world by winning control of the Palestinian Parliament, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claimed: "Nobody saw it coming." The line could describe much of what has resulted from George W. Bush's efforts to transform the world—or at least one part of it, the Middle East. As long as the Islamists of Hamas refused to recognize Israel, the United States refused to deal with the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government. The hope was not that ordinary Palestinians would suffer, but that they would realize such a government was not in their best interests. At the same time Washington tried to bolster Abbas and his Fatah movement—the secular Palestinian party founded by Yasir Arafat. The strategy backfired. America was seen to be taking sides. Hamas, under pressure, built up its own paramilitary forces to counter those controlled by Abbas (and trained by the United States). Then, last week, as tit-for-tat killings in Gaza spiraled out of control, those Hamas fighters in Gaza turned out to be far more fierce than their better-funded opponents. The result: the radicals are now in charge of Gaza, a 140-square-mile strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea along Israel's western border that is packed with 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them desperately poor. Until late 2005 Gaza was occupied by Israeli troops, and until last week Bush still saw it as part of the new Palestinian state he wanted to create along with the larger West Bank. Now Gaza may become Hamas's private enclave and perhaps even an ungovernable font of terror. The violent takeover of Gaza by Hamas is not just a death knell for Israeli-Palestinian peace, splitting Bush's dream of a Palestinian state into two armed camps. It is also, along with the quagmire in Iraq, a historic rebuff. In his second Inaugural Address, the president embraced the promotion of democracy as his top priority, declaring: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." But in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, as in Russia, Pakistan and other places, liberty is retreating. And the fact remains that those places where Washington has most actively and directly pushed for elections—Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza—are today the most factionalized, chaotic and violent in the region. Why does the disaster in Gaza matter? In part because the defeat of the secular—and more moderate—Fatah forces could, along with the insurgents' success in Iraq, inspire Islamist radicals in the region and around the world. Hamas is not the Taliban, and it knows that an uptick in rocket attacks against Israel will be met with a harsh response. But, as Bush said in his second Inaugural, the whole point of promoting freedom is to blunt the hopelessness and anger that breed radicalism. Gaza faces 50 percent unemployment in the best of times. Qaeda-like splinter groups that have carried out kidnappings of foreigners have already begun to appear. Further isolating the territory is not likely to fill its residents with faith in the future. Citizens of countries where Washington has called for greater democracy—Iran, say, or Syria—now have three less-than-inspiring examples close to home. In Lebanon, Iranian-backed Hizbullah reigns as a power unto itself. In Iraq, the sect-based parties that came to power in the 2005 elections have created a bloody nightmare, and stymied any attempts to forge a truly national consensus. And in the Palestinian territories, Washington simply rejected the election results. Optimists in Israel and America argue that Abbas, having dismissed the Hamas-led Palestinian government, is now free to receive millions in aid money and customs revenues that had been held back. The idea seems to be to bolster the wealthier, less radicalized West Bank and starve Gaza (of attention and respectability, if not food). But simply walling off Gaza, and more than a million Palestinians, will bring the region no closer to peace. In a recent interview with NEWSWEEK, Rice said that establishing the idea of a "two-state solution" was one of her proudest achievements. "You now have a broad international consensus," she said. "That's a conceptual breakthrough." What she's left with now, at best, is a one-and-a-half-state solution. Gaza also poses a lesson in the limits of imperial power in the 21st century. Let's face it: Americans have always made crummy imperialists. A century ago Teddy Roosevelt complained that "America lacked the stomach for empire." A senior White House official echoed that lament early in the Iraq occupation, noting that America has the power of a true empire, like Rome or like Britain in the 19th century, but not the taste for acting like one. "Look at us in Iraq—how much difficulty we have in saying we will anoint people to run the country. Does anyone think the Romans or the Brits would have been deterred?" he grumbled. Nor did many hard-liners in Washington ever fully understand that using raw power to "impose" democracy on peoples who were not ready to seize it for themselves was a chimera. By insisting on cure-all elections in countries and territories that had no institutions of justice and security, or a politically aware economic middle class, to sustain democracy, the Bush team clearly seems to have overreached. The next American president will have to grapple with a Middle East that is messier and quite possibly angrier than before 9/11. But also, in a larger sense, he or she will have to confront anew a harsh lesson in the limits of power. America can only be, at best, a guiding hand behind an international system that is disposed to democracy and open markets. Bush is himself coming to acknowledge this, especially by maintaining a multilateral front with the Europeans to deal with the nuclear threat from Iran. Rice, in her NEWSWEEK interview, acknowledged that the administration had scaled down its hopes for "transformational" policy. "We're laying the foundations for someone else to succeed in the future, and I think that's fine." But right now, success looks very far away indeed.
Newsweek
June 25, 2007 issue - The Israelis didn't want Palestinian elections back in January 2006. Even Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, had been worried about them and kept asking for delays. As early as the spring of 2005, Abbas had warned American officials that he did not have the popular support to disarm Hamas, the Islamist party that turned suicide terror bombings into a standard tactic in Israel and which both Abbas and the Israelis saw was growing in power. But Bush administration officials insisted, confident of the curative powers of democracy. Later, after Hamas stunned the world by winning control of the Palestinian Parliament, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claimed: "Nobody saw it coming." The line could describe much of what has resulted from George W. Bush's efforts to transform the world—or at least one part of it, the Middle East. As long as the Islamists of Hamas refused to recognize Israel, the United States refused to deal with the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government. The hope was not that ordinary Palestinians would suffer, but that they would realize such a government was not in their best interests. At the same time Washington tried to bolster Abbas and his Fatah movement—the secular Palestinian party founded by Yasir Arafat. The strategy backfired. America was seen to be taking sides. Hamas, under pressure, built up its own paramilitary forces to counter those controlled by Abbas (and trained by the United States). Then, last week, as tit-for-tat killings in Gaza spiraled out of control, those Hamas fighters in Gaza turned out to be far more fierce than their better-funded opponents. The result: the radicals are now in charge of Gaza, a 140-square-mile strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea along Israel's western border that is packed with 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them desperately poor. Until late 2005 Gaza was occupied by Israeli troops, and until last week Bush still saw it as part of the new Palestinian state he wanted to create along with the larger West Bank. Now Gaza may become Hamas's private enclave and perhaps even an ungovernable font of terror. The violent takeover of Gaza by Hamas is not just a death knell for Israeli-Palestinian peace, splitting Bush's dream of a Palestinian state into two armed camps. It is also, along with the quagmire in Iraq, a historic rebuff. In his second Inaugural Address, the president embraced the promotion of democracy as his top priority, declaring: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." But in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, as in Russia, Pakistan and other places, liberty is retreating. And the fact remains that those places where Washington has most actively and directly pushed for elections—Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza—are today the most factionalized, chaotic and violent in the region. Why does the disaster in Gaza matter? In part because the defeat of the secular—and more moderate—Fatah forces could, along with the insurgents' success in Iraq, inspire Islamist radicals in the region and around the world. Hamas is not the Taliban, and it knows that an uptick in rocket attacks against Israel will be met with a harsh response. But, as Bush said in his second Inaugural, the whole point of promoting freedom is to blunt the hopelessness and anger that breed radicalism. Gaza faces 50 percent unemployment in the best of times. Qaeda-like splinter groups that have carried out kidnappings of foreigners have already begun to appear. Further isolating the territory is not likely to fill its residents with faith in the future. Citizens of countries where Washington has called for greater democracy—Iran, say, or Syria—now have three less-than-inspiring examples close to home. In Lebanon, Iranian-backed Hizbullah reigns as a power unto itself. In Iraq, the sect-based parties that came to power in the 2005 elections have created a bloody nightmare, and stymied any attempts to forge a truly national consensus. And in the Palestinian territories, Washington simply rejected the election results. Optimists in Israel and America argue that Abbas, having dismissed the Hamas-led Palestinian government, is now free to receive millions in aid money and customs revenues that had been held back. The idea seems to be to bolster the wealthier, less radicalized West Bank and starve Gaza (of attention and respectability, if not food). But simply walling off Gaza, and more than a million Palestinians, will bring the region no closer to peace. In a recent interview with NEWSWEEK, Rice said that establishing the idea of a "two-state solution" was one of her proudest achievements. "You now have a broad international consensus," she said. "That's a conceptual breakthrough." What she's left with now, at best, is a one-and-a-half-state solution. Gaza also poses a lesson in the limits of imperial power in the 21st century. Let's face it: Americans have always made crummy imperialists. A century ago Teddy Roosevelt complained that "America lacked the stomach for empire." A senior White House official echoed that lament early in the Iraq occupation, noting that America has the power of a true empire, like Rome or like Britain in the 19th century, but not the taste for acting like one. "Look at us in Iraq—how much difficulty we have in saying we will anoint people to run the country. Does anyone think the Romans or the Brits would have been deterred?" he grumbled. Nor did many hard-liners in Washington ever fully understand that using raw power to "impose" democracy on peoples who were not ready to seize it for themselves was a chimera. By insisting on cure-all elections in countries and territories that had no institutions of justice and security, or a politically aware economic middle class, to sustain democracy, the Bush team clearly seems to have overreached. The next American president will have to grapple with a Middle East that is messier and quite possibly angrier than before 9/11. But also, in a larger sense, he or she will have to confront anew a harsh lesson in the limits of power. America can only be, at best, a guiding hand behind an international system that is disposed to democracy and open markets. Bush is himself coming to acknowledge this, especially by maintaining a multilateral front with the Europeans to deal with the nuclear threat from Iran. Rice, in her NEWSWEEK interview, acknowledged that the administration had scaled down its hopes for "transformational" policy. "We're laying the foundations for someone else to succeed in the future, and I think that's fine." But right now, success looks very far away indeed.
SOUTHERN BAPTISTS - A SPLIT IN POLITICS?
Southern Baptists split over politics
Dialogue centers on prominence in the public square, influence
SAN ANTONIO - Folded into the Rev. Frank Page’s wallet is a yellow scrap of paper with the date and time he is to speak with yet another Republican candidate for the White House. He already has visited one GOP front-runner over breakfast at a country club and met another at the headquarters of a car dealership in his home state. The South Carolina pastor seems taken aback by the attention, but he shouldn’t be: He leads a large congregation in a state with an early primary and is president of the 16.3 million-strong Southern Baptist Convention, perhaps the largest single bloc of evangelical voters and a must-have Republican constituency. Page, in an interview at his denomination’s annual meeting here last week, said he offers his thoughts about salvation to candidates but never an endorsement. And he talks to Democrats, too. He sees the political courtship as a duty: The nation’s leaders need to hear a Christian viewpoint, he believes. But some Southern Baptists would rather stay out of politics altogether. A small but vocal number of pastors believe the denomination is too cozy with Republicans and too political in general. By flirting with the line separating good citizenship and a grab for power, they say, a denomination already experiencing flat membership risks alienating more people. Others contend such talk might inspire Southern Baptists to retreat from the public square and cede ground on urgent social issues such as abortion.
‘Good citizenship and voting’If anything, the debate is likely to become even more magnified in coming months because no one Republican candidate has captured the conservative evangelical imagination — and all of them are trying. "Most younger Southern Baptist leaders would strongly affirm good citizenship and voting and involvement in the political process," said Marty Duren, 43, a Georgia pastor. "But they don’t confound personal involvement with organizing for political power, which we saw in organizations like the Moral Majority." Duren also cited national Southern Baptist leaders who joined politicians at "Justice Sunday" events promoting conservative judicial appointments in 2005 and 2006. So far, such views are in the minority. In San Antonio, Duren proposed an anti-partisanship resolution urging convention leaders "to exercise great restraint when speaking on behalf of Southern Baptists so as not to intermingle their personal political persuasions with their chief responsibility to represent Jesus Christ and this convention." The resolution that was ultimately adopted, "On Pastors, Culture, and Civic Duty," did not mention partisanship. Instead, it suggested pastors follow the late Jerry Falwell’s lead by speaking out on burning moral issues and promote "informed and active Christian citizenship." "The worst thing that can happen is for people of faith to say, ‘You know, that’s really not our arena, we’re just going to abandon it to the secularists,’" said the Rev. Jerry Sutton of Nashville, Tenn., whose church hosted the second Justice Sunday assembly.
‘A long history of dissent’Southern Baptists have been solidly Republican since the emergence of the anti-abortion movement, the denomination’s "conservative resurgence" of the late 1970s and Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, and there is no indication of that wavering. "There is a long history of dissent among Southern Baptists, so the discordant voices about politics are not necessarily a harbinger of change," said John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Page, however, has sympathy for Southern Baptists worried about closeness to Republicans. "They are valid concerns, but I think those valid concerns could be mitigated if there is responsible dialogue with these (candidates), not an acquiesce to everything they say," he said. "Responsible Christian citizenship calls us to be in dialogue with people of every party. Page met Sen. John McCain at a Spartanburg, S.C., auto business. He’s also met and traded e-mails with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a GOP presidential hopeful and Southern Baptist minister who signed copies of his new book at the SBC annual meeting. What might surprise some evangelicals is that Page also chatted over breakfast at a country club with Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor vilified by many social conservatives for his support of abortion rights and for his messy second divorce. Page said the two discussed everything from the Roman Catholic Mass to evangelical beliefs about accepting Christ. He said he told Giuliani, "we like you as a person," singling out his leadership in New York after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But Page also described "an honest dialogue about abortion, about gay rights — and those are extreme differences." The phone number in Page’s back pocket: It belongs to a representative of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is making a strong push to court evangelicals. Page and others talk about keeping lines open to Democrats. But that is fraying over an initiative led by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to unite Baptists from various denominations across racial lines to counter conservative SBC influence. "When I met Carter, everyone said, ‘It’s political, it’s political,’" said the Rev. Wade Burleson of Enid, Okla. "I went to determine whether it was nonpolitical. If there were an ounce of politics, I wouldn’t participate. My question is, ‘Why do we yell and scream when Democrats are political, but are silent about our own political involvement?’" Like evangelicals as a whole, Baptists remain divided on which candidate to support, though the focus is heavily on Republicans. Richard Land, one of the nation’s most politically influential Southern Baptists, said he has been sought out by Republican campaigns (Huckabee, McCain, Duncan Hunter) and Democratic ones (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama). He has met some and plans to meet others, but does not endorse candidates.
‘A magnetic personality’Land and other evangelicals accepted an invitation to meet with Romney, whose Mormonism worries some evangelicals. Land said he advised Romney to give a speech laying out how this faith would shape his presidency, much the same way John F. Kennedy spoke to a ministers group in Houston to allay Protestant fears of a shadow Vatican presidency. "I said to him, ‘Governor, I personally don’t think the Mormonism is a deal-killer. But the only person who can convince millions of Americans to vote for a Mormon president is Mitt Romney,’" said Land, who heads the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission. The name generating perhaps the most excitement among Southern Baptists is someone who hasn’t even entered the race yet: Fred Thompson of Tennessee, the actor and former senator. "Another Southern Baptist called Fred Thompson the Ronald Reagan of the South, and I think he has some of that appeal," said SBC executive committee president Morris Chapman, adding he hasn’t settled on a candidate yet. "He is a magnetic personality. He seems to articulate his opinions clearly. He seems to be unflappable." Chapman sees the debate about political engagement, partisanship and evolving agendas as healthy. "We are most of the time intent on expressing our convictions — the moral and ethical issues that face us as a nation," he said. "And some diversity is not bad. It adds to the fabric of who Southern Baptists really are."
Thursday, June 07, 2007
TIMEDLINES - THEY ARE A CHANGIN'
FORGOTTEN DUBAI PORTS, HOW FAST WE FORGET (PICTURE OF SHIPMENT FOR THE USA COURTESY OF DUBAI)TIMEDLINES
AMOS 3:6-7 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it? Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
ISAIAH 45:6-7 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
PSALM 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
HOSEA 6:1-2 Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
ll PETER 3:3-8 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The Old Testament is written unto the Jews/Israel and the New Testament is written unto the Gentile/church. The key is 1 day = 1,000 years it has been 2007 years (with the exception that we do not know when Jesus was born so we could be nearing the year 2000 since Christ instead of 2007) since Jesus was born and it states that one day is with the LORD (meaning Jesus Christ) so with the script above written to the Jew in Hosea 6:2 which states:After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight., So it has been 2 days since Christ (LORD spelled with all capitalizations the same as in John Chapter 20 verses 2,13,18,25,28 in most of the King James and New International Versions which is the accurate rendering based upon John 12) came to the earth in a non-glorified body so that he could go to the cross and die for your sin, if he had been in a "glorified state" then his flesh could not die, and wherever you see in the old testament and new testament the spelling of the LORD with all caps it is either His Glorified state before His birth unto His death or it is after His resurrection from the dead.
JOHN 12:23-26 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
JOHN 12:27-30 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. THERE IS A SPACE BETWEEN "HAVE" AND "WILL" have is in the past and will is in the future so that the space between is called the present and this space is called the CROSS, from birth to resurrection Christ's flesh was made a little lower than the angels, but after the resurrection He went unto the Father to be "Glorified" as He was in the Beginning with the Father.
JOHN 17:1-7 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
JOHN 15:16-19 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
AMOS 3:6-7 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it? Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
ISAIAH 45:6-7 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
PSALM 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
HOSEA 6:1-2 Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
ll PETER 3:3-8 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The Old Testament is written unto the Jews/Israel and the New Testament is written unto the Gentile/church. The key is 1 day = 1,000 years it has been 2007 years (with the exception that we do not know when Jesus was born so we could be nearing the year 2000 since Christ instead of 2007) since Jesus was born and it states that one day is with the LORD (meaning Jesus Christ) so with the script above written to the Jew in Hosea 6:2 which states:After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight., So it has been 2 days since Christ (LORD spelled with all capitalizations the same as in John Chapter 20 verses 2,13,18,25,28 in most of the King James and New International Versions which is the accurate rendering based upon John 12) came to the earth in a non-glorified body so that he could go to the cross and die for your sin, if he had been in a "glorified state" then his flesh could not die, and wherever you see in the old testament and new testament the spelling of the LORD with all caps it is either His Glorified state before His birth unto His death or it is after His resurrection from the dead.
JOHN 12:23-26 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
JOHN 12:27-30 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. THERE IS A SPACE BETWEEN "HAVE" AND "WILL" have is in the past and will is in the future so that the space between is called the present and this space is called the CROSS, from birth to resurrection Christ's flesh was made a little lower than the angels, but after the resurrection He went unto the Father to be "Glorified" as He was in the Beginning with the Father.
JOHN 17:1-7 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
JOHN 15:16-19 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
ANDREW CARD THE MAN AND HIS ASSISTANCE TO THE US GOVERNMENT MARKING SYSTEM - CHIPS
TEST CASE FOR IMMIGRATION AND PASSPORT SERVICES FAIL ALLOWING TB PATIENT "ANDREW SPEAKER" TO LEAVE THE USA AND RETURN WITHOUT BEING STOPPED BY AGENTS.
WAS THE CDC RESPONSIBLE FOR LAWYER'S MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW OF THE UNITED STATES CONCERNING CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OR IS ANDREW SPEAKER A PART OF THE SYSTEM DESIGNED TO BRING IN A PERMANENT MARK OR CHIP SYSTEM TO TRACE EACH INDIVIDUAL AS THEY TRAVEL TO AND FROM THE USA AND OTHER COUNTRIES, MY BETS ARE ON THE CHIP SYSTEM AND ON OUR ILLUSTRIOUS MR. SPEAKER BEING A PART OF THAT PROGRAM TO SET UP SUCH A SYSTEM, AFTER ALL WE DO HAVE TO FIX THE SYSTEM DON'T WE? THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T SEEM TO CARE ABOUT THE DISEASES CROSSING THE LINE ACROSS THE MEXICAN BORDER SO WHY WORRY ABOUT THIS ONE MAN - PART OF THE SCHEME, I THINK SO. -debate
Exclusive: TB Patient Asks Forgiveness but Defends Travel
Andrew Speaker Said He Has Proof That Doctors Told Him He Couldn't Infect Others
June 1, 2007 —
In an exclusive interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker said he never thought others were at risk for catching his deadly disease. "I'm very sorry for any grief or pain that I have caused anyone," Speaker said from his isolation room in the National Jewish Hospital in Denver. "I think if people look at my life, that's not & not how I live my life." Speaker, a 31-year-old lawyer from Atlanta, learned he had TB in January. In May, doctors realized his strain, known as XDR-TB, was extensively drug-resistant. He then boarded a commercial flight to Paris May 12, and returned from Europe 12 days later on a flight from Prague, Czech Republic, to Canada. Speaker said he never thought he was sick enough to infect others. He felt fine two weeks ago, walking around, jogging and trying cases as usual. He told Sawyer he had a tape recording of a meeting with health officials that he said would confirm his view that it was OK to travel in his condition. "I hope they understand, based on what I was told didn't think I was making that gamble," he said. "I truly believe that there is a misunderstanding of how we entered into all of this. I hope they understand that at every turn it was conveyed to me that my family, my wife, my daughter, no one was at risk. And that I was not contagious. And that I never would have put my family at risk and my daughter at risk."
Speaker: CDC Let Him Go, Then Abandoned Him
Doctors say they told Speaker not to travel. Speaker said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health organizations advised him against travel but didn't stop him. Speaker's father-in-law, Bob Cooksey, is a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of TB and other bacteria. He said only that he gave Speaker "fatherly advice" when he learned the young man had contracted the disease. "Everyone knew. & The CDC knew, doctors knew, Kaiser knew. They said, 'We would prefer you not go on the trip,'" he said. "And that's when my father said, 'OK, are you saying because he's a risk to anybody or are you simply saying it to cover yourself?' And they said, 'We have to tell you that to cover ourselves, but he's not a risk.'" Speaker said after the CDC called him in Rome and told him to cancel his commercial fight plans, it didn't offer him any help. Speaker says it would have cost $100,000 to fly back on a noncommercial airline. In effect, he said, the CDC was walking away from him and his chance for treatment at the TB facility in Denver. "Before I left, it was made clear to me in order to fight this I had one shot and that was here," he said about his chances for survival. "I had one shot at this and if I didn't get right treatment, CDC sends testing out here, so they can pick the right drugs to mix, and if I was somewhere where they got it wrong, that was it, they blew my last shot." Looking back, Speaker realizes he may have been able to raise the $100,000 to charter a flight home. He said he didn't because he didn't think he was a health risk to others. "In hindsight you can try & say maybe I could have planned something out, maybe could have raised money," he said. "[But] understand at this whole time everyone told me I'm not contagious and no threat to anyone." Speaker boarded a plane back to the United States because he feared he would die in Europe. "We said, 'Let's get home and get to Denver,'" he said about his and his wife's decision to leave Europe. "Both of us worried if I turned myself [in] the next day that's it. It's very real that I could have died there. & People told me if I was anywhere but Denver, I'll die." What happened was a result of confusion, panic and a desire to stay alive, but never to hurt strangers or his family, Speaker said. He hopes the TB tests of his fellow passengers come back negative, and he said he wants them to know he is sorry. "I feel awful. I've lived in state of constant fear and anxiety. I'm exhausted, for a week now. And to think that someone else is now feeling that, I wouldn't want anyone to feel that way -- it's awful," he said. "I just hope they can forgive me and understand that I really believed [I] wasn't putting people at risk because that's what the people told me."
"YOU DON'T KNOW ME", CRIED A TEAR DRIVEN MR.SPEAKER AS HE TRIED TO CONVINCE THE CROWD BOO-ING HIM ON THE HURRY SPRINGER SHOW. "I'M NOT EVIL, I'M NOT WHAT YOU THINK I AM" AS HE SOBBED TO GAIN THE SYMPATHY OF THE CROWD, "I'M ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS", SURE YOU ARE MR. SPEAKER. humour
REVELATION 13: 15-18 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Friday, June 01, 2007
SECRETS OF THE WHITE HOUSE - TO BE REVEALED?
White House follows new path to secrecy
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 3 minutes ago
A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration. Over the past year, lawyers for President Bush and Cheney have directed the Secret Service to maintain the confidentiality of visitor entry and exit logs, declaring them to be presidential records, exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever asks to see them. The drive to keep the logs secret, the administration says, is essential to assuring that the president and vice president receive candid advice to carry out their duties. Cabinet officers often don't want to give up their meeting calendars to journalists. They have no choice under the Freedom of Information Act, which provides public access to some records kept by federal agencies. But the FOIA disclosure law, which doesn't apply to Congress, also doesn't apply to presidential records. The Bush administration has exploited that difference, triggering a battle in the courts. The administration is seeking dismissal of two lawsuits by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, demanding Secret Service visitor logs. In trying to get the cases thrown out, the Justice Department has filed documents in court outlining a behind-the-scenes debate over whether Secret Service records are subject to public disclosure. The discussions date back at least to the administration of President Bush's father and involve the Justice Department and the National Archives as well as the White House and the Secret Service. The government's court filings show that the Bush White House focused on the issue in the months before Election Day 2004. Discussions moved into high gear when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal prompted news organizations and private groups to demand that the administration turn over Secret Service records of visitors to the White House complex and the vice president's residence. There was precedent for the demands. During the Clinton administration, Republican-controlled congressional committees obtained Secret Service visitor logs while conducting investigations of the president and first lady. Christopher Lehane, a former special assistant counsel to President Clinton and press secretary to then-Vice President Al Gore, points out the political implications of the Bush administration campaign to close off access to the records. "The question it raises is 'what are these guys hiding?'" said Lehane, now a Democratic consultant. "They can live with it because they've only got a year or so left, but it doesn't do a lot for public confidence in open government." White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Thursday, "I can't comment on a case in litigation, and I can't speak to the decisions made by other administrations." The Bush administration says it is standing on principle. "It is important that the president be able to receive candid advice from his staff and other members of the administration," Fratto said. "To ensure that he receives candid advice, it is essential as a general matter that the advice remains confidential." In a declaration filed in court a week ago, Cheney's deputy chief of staff, Claire O'Donnell, stated that "systematic public release of the information regarding when and with whom the vice president and vice presidential personnel conduct meetings would impinge on the ability of the OVP (office of the vice president) to gather information in confidence and perform its essential functions, including assisting the vice president in his critical roles of advising and assisting the president." In May 2006, the Secret Service and the White House signed a memorandum of understanding designating visitor records as presidential. They are "not the records of an 'agency' subject to the Freedom of Information Act," says the agreement that was not disclosed until months later, in late 2006. The records are "at all times under the exclusive legal custody and control of the White House." Four months after the memorandum of agreement, Cheney's counsel wrote the Secret Service, stating that visitor records for the vice president's personal residence "are and shall remain subject to the exclusive ownership, custody and control of OVP." The Sept. 13, 2006, date on the Cheney letter coincides with requests by The Washington Post seeking records on the vice president's visitors under the Freedom of Information Act. The law enforcement agency "shall not retain any copy of these documents and information upon return to OVP," stated the letter to the Secret Service's chief counsel. "If any documents remain in your possession, please return them to OVP as soon as possible," the letter added. The Justice Department filed the Cheney letter last Friday in one of the lawsuits brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is invoking the FOIA law in seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited the White House complex and the vice president's residence. The group, which represents Valerie Plame and her husband in their lawsuit against Cheney and other key administration figures in the leak of Plame's CIA identity, also is seeking White House visitor logs in the Abramoff scandal. According to government documents, the Secret Service routinely destroyed five of eight categories of information relating to visitors to Cheney's residence. Of the records it retained, the Secret Service regularly turned over handwritten visitor logs to Cheney's office. The Secret Service stopped the destruction in June 2006 because of lawsuits by various groups, according to the court papers. The law enforcement agency also is retaining copies of the material, contrary to the directive in the September 2006 letter from Cheney's counsel. The court filings by the government show that: _On three occasions late in the administration of the first President Bush and during the first term of President Clinton, the Secret Service proposed treating copies of White House visitor documents as non-presidential records. In its court filings, the current Bush administration opposes releasing details of the Secret Service proposals, saying this "poses a substantial risk of creating public confusion" because the proposals were never adopted. _In January 2001, as Clinton prepared to leave office, White House lawyers proposed the transfer of visitor records from the Secret Service to the White House. The proposal was entitled "Disposition of certain presidential records created by the USSS," or the Secret Service. The records are now at the Clinton library in Little Rock, Ark., the National Archives confirmed Thursday. _In September 2004, a lawyer for the Bush White House and a special assistant to the director of the Secret Service proposed "informal views on one way to address the disposition" of visitor records, according to court documents. The unnamed associate White House counsel and the Secret Service assistant jointly authored a July 29, 2004, document bearing the same title as the Clinton administration document from 3 1/2 years earlier. _In July 2005, the Secret Service gave a presentation on the issue to the White House counsel's office, the Justice Department and the National Archives. _On May 11, 2006, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel provided a legal opinion on the issue, which is among the many documents the government is refusing to disclose. Six days later, the White House and the Secret Service signed the agreement designating the records as presidential. Presidential records are released starting five years after a president leaves office. Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, non-classified material is disclosed first, with classified documents and advice to the president released later after review by federal agencies, the White House and the former president. Under an executive order President Bush signed in 2001, the archivist of the United States cannot unilaterally release the records without the permission of the current president, former presidents and their representatives. "The scary thing about this move by the vice president's office is the power grab part of it," said Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, a private group which uses the FOIA law to pierce government secrecy. "We're looking at a huge problem if the White House can reach into any agency and say certain records have something to do with the White House and they are presidential from now on," Blanton said. "This White House has been infinitely creative in finding new ways and new forms of government secrecy."
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)